IAEA Report Says Iran Has Bomb Plans

VIENNA — A document obtained by Iran on the nuclear black market serves no other purpose than to make an atomic bomb, the International Atomic Energy Agency said Tuesday.

The finding was made in a report prepared for presentation to the 35-nation IAEA board when it meets, starting Thursday, on whether to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council, which has the power to impose economic and political sanctions on Iran.

The report was made available in full to The Associated Press.

First mention of the documents was made late last year in a longer IAEA report. At that time, the agency said only that the papers showed how to cast "enriched, natural and depleted uranium metal into hemispherical forms."

The agency refused to make a judgment on what possible uses such casts would have. But diplomats familiar with the probe into Iran's nuclear program said then that the papers apparently were instructions on how to mold highly enriched grade uranium into the core of warheads.

In the brief report obtained Tuesday, however, the agency said bluntly that the 15-page document showing how to cast fissile uranium into metal was "related to the fabrication of nuclear weapon components."

Asked about the finding, a senior diplomat close to the IAEA declined to elaborate but emphasized that the documents had no other use.

The report said the document was under agency seal, meaning that IAEA experts were able in theory to re-examine it, but "Iran has declined a request to provide the agency with a copy."

Diplomats familiar with the IAEA investigation of Iran said earlier Tuesday that part of the document recently was given to the agency in an effort to deflect building international momentum to report Iran to the Security Council. But the report did not mention Tehran handing over any papers.

The document was given to Iran by members of the nuclear black market network, the IAEA said. Iran has claimed it did not ask for the document but was given it anyway as part of other black market purchases.

The same network provided Libya with drawings of a crude nuclear bomb which that country handed over to the IAEA as part of its 2003 decision to scrap its atomic weapons program.

"The document was given to Iran by members of the nuclear black market network, the IAEA said. Iran has claimed it did not ask for the document but was given it anyway as part of other black market purchases."

I'm sure many a politician has tried that argument -- "I didn't ask for the money, it was just given to me." These are not the actions of a peaceful nation, trying to develop peaceful uses for nuclear technology.

(CBS/AP) Experiments with high explosives, possibly linked to future nuclear weapons tests, were carried out as recently as 2003 in Iran, sources tell CBS News.

International Atomic Energy Agency analysts said they suspect the experiments took place at a huge military complex south of Tehran. Inspectors were permitted only one visit, and saw only part of the site, reports CBS News correspondent Sheila MacVicar.

The timing, shape, and composition of HE detonations is critical to initiating a nuclear-explosive blast that doesn't fizzle (This is Elijah speaking, not the article). One may either rely upon computer simulations (and we know how wrong models can be), or through physical tests. Looks like Iran has chosen the latter, and it is NOT consistent with the production of nuclear power.